Life so often sneaks past us.

Or in the words of various individuals throughout the latter half of the 20th century; “Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans”.

The “great choices” of life, those that carry with them true life changing results, and that shape the destiny of each life, so seldom call attention to themselves.  They come and go, dressed up as small events, tiny irritants, and miniscule frustrations.  We tend to them without thinking, and sometime later if we are lucky, we realize that we tended to them poorly. 

I’ve been lucky enough to have several epiphanies in my life that clearly and immediately rebalanced my future.  Diving into cold dark waters seeking a drowning child, hanging stuck 300 feet up an exposed granite rock face while free-climbing, looking along the sights of a loaded weapon at another human being, falling 30 feet off of a building to crush my spine, performing CPR and resuscitation breathing on a wilderness trail; each of those events presented moments of clarity for me where I realized that the decisions and actions that had led me to those points, and the decisions and actions that would lead me forward from those points, were going to be pivotal to my life.

But the most impactful epiphany I have ever had borne none of the immediately recognizable potential of any of those other three.  My most impactful epiphany occurred one evening, as I was rushing home on the highway, late, again, knowing that my wife would find ways to express her displeasure.

Like uncountable men before me, and uncounted men since I was supposed to have broken off work and been home at a prescribed time.  And with the digital clock inconveniently located right next to the speedometer, it was obvious that the car couldn’t move fast enough to get me home before I was going to be close to 2 hours late.

And like uncountable men before me, I blamed the unfairness on the world.  I was supposed to be the “breadwinner”, my wife expected me to climb the corporate ladder and provide; cars and homes, and tuitions, and vacations.  And I was doing that.  We had agreed before we wed, her job was to finish school and bear and raise our children, mine was to drop out and take the opportunity to move into management with the retail company I worked for and build a career around that.

And I had done so, hadn’t I?  I had become a department manager, and then an assistant manager trainee, and on through being an assistant manager to “first” assistant, and finally to store manager.  Each time I was moved from store to store I dug in afresh.  I learned more, taught better, harnessed experiences and built a better more rounded suit.  I was damn good at it.  I was the very pattern of retail success.

But it had come at a price.

Time.

Time away from home.

Time away from family.

Time that wasn’t my own.

And that time, the same I was racing against that night, that time had robbed me of my family, as surely as it had robbed my family from me.

For you see, I was going to be 2 hours late for my son’s 9th birthday.

And as I thought about that, while willing the speedometer to pass 80 and move on to “time travel”, I had my epiphany.

My Son.  My son was 9 years old.  When, how, why hadn’t I seen?  And being done with 9 he was entering the time in life when he would soon come face to face with pivotal choices of his own; drugs, girls, cars, college, career, all of those issues that begin to close in on people somewhere between 5th grade and 12th.  

And I realized that when he faced those choices, he was going to have to face them alone, or worse, armed only with the council of his peers.

Because, well, because he didn’t know me; and because I didn’t know him.

There was no reason to think he would come ask my advice.  For all of his awareness I was gone when he woke up, and came home about the time he went to bed.  For all of his days I worked an average 70 hours a week.  Six solid days, and often some time on the seventh.

 I had wasted fully half of my son’s life.    

I say half because my real epiphany was that after my son turned 18 and moved out (to college, or work, or whatever life brought) I would be lucky to see him another 250 days in the rest of our lives.

Think about it.  Thanksgiving, Christmas, part of a weekend here, an evening there, maybe a few days in the summer if schedules allow for coordinated vacations.  Say 8 days a year at best.

From birth to 18 years old, six thousand five hundred and seventy days.

From 18 to his or my death, maybe 250 additional.

Ninety-six percent of the time I would ever have available would be before he turned eighteen.

My epiphany during that drive was that my son was half way to 18 and I had already wasted 3,285 days 

It took some time to arrange it, but I walked away from my retail passion.  I stepped out from the known and confident into the unknown and unsure.

And to be truthful, there have been some financially rough times since.  Times were our accounts bled red ink all over the statements.

But I got involved in Cub Scouts, and Boy Scouts, and 4-H, and my son and I and daughter and I camped, and hiked, and boated, and fished, and explored.

We read together every night before bed, and built bikes and cars.  And I drove them to races and college, and theatre rehearsals.

And none of that was easy, I worried more than when I had been working 70 hour weeks.  I worried about how to make the mortgage, I worried about how to pay the bills, and buy the clothes, and afford a movie now and then.  Our income dropped by some 60%, my “vacation” tiem was consumed whit some youth group for 15 years or more, I had evening meetings schedules most nights for 18 to 20 months out ahead of me.

The house slowly fell into disrepair as I would look at a chore and say “I can do that, or I can spend some time with Bryan or Allison, and time with always won out.

Now they are grown and gone. My son lives over a thousand miles away, My daughter most of the same (when she and her husband are actually in this country).  And I am back to 60+ hour weeks and focusing on improving the home property.

And I have realized that while hopefully I have many years ahead, my best living was between my son’s 10th birthday (my daughter’s 8th) and both of their 20th birthdays.  Those were the years I truly lived.

It’s not that I am not doing now.  I am painting, and wood carving, writing books and poems; I’m building structures and growing vegetables, gardens, shrubs and myself.

But, that was when I was “Dad” and when I created time, and opportunities, and memories that will stay with my children and flow to their families.  

That was when I was fully alive.

©2019 Copyright, Marty Vandermolen, All Rights Reserved